


The Doctor Is Out

by violet tinted pencil (violet_pencil)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_pencil/pseuds/violet%20tinted%20pencil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John closes his eyes, his hand clenched into a tight fist against his belly and still trembling. <i>For god's sake, Watson,</i> he thinks. <i>Maybe a dog</i> would <i>be better this than you are. Better at living.</i></p><p>Written for the sherlockbbc-fic kink meme prompt: "John deals with his nightmares and PTSD every day. But sometimes it gets to be too much for him, and he retreats into himself and pretends he's a dog. (Think Sirius Black turning into a dog to survive the Dementors.)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor Is Out

It started with a dream that John had one night, after his return to England but before he'd met Sherlock Holmes. When John was a kid he'd had a dog, an English bulldog named (for some mysterious reason that no one in John's family was ever really able to recall) Gladstone. And in the dream John was a dog, and somehow he knew that he was Gladstone, curled up on the old red rug in front of the heater, in the living room of the house that John had grown up in. Occasionally he would hear footsteps, or voices in distant rooms, but he couldn't make out words; it was just soothing noise. It didn't really matter, wasn't worrisome or urgent. He was hungry, a little, but he knew that eventually there would be food, and then maybe he would go out outside and run in the soft grass. He didn't have anywhere to go, really, so he would run just to _run_ , stretch his muscles, feel the wind on his face. Then he would come back in and lie down, and tomorrow would be the same, and the next day, and the next. There would never be anything to do but eat and run and rest and get warm, right down to his bones.

The dream was calm and unhurried, the world was small and manageable, and the best part was that it seemed to go on and on for absolutely ages. And when John woke up in his bleak, cold bedsit, it was worse than any nightmare yet, because he wanted to go back there so badly that it physically hurt, like a pulled muscle somewhere in his chest. (John knows now that he could only let himself want it because it wasn't like his other dreams. It wasn't the war, and so he could actually _admit_ that it was something that he needed.)

John had never told his therapist about that particular dream, thank god. He can't imagine (really doesn't _want_ to imagine) what Mycroft bloody Holmes would have made of _that_.

Because the dream isn't the end of it. There's a day-- a few days later? That same week? The days are blurring a bit, honestly. It's just another day with nothing to do, no real reason to get dressed or showered or even out of bed. No reason to eat, even though John's stomach is growling and his head aches, and he knows damn well that the longer he spends in bed, the worse it's going to get. John closes his eyes, his hand clenched into a tight fist against his belly and still trembling. _For god's sake, Watson,_ he thinks. _Maybe a dog_ would _be better this than you are. Better at living. Gladstone didn't need a reason. Dogs don't ask 'what's my motivation.' They just-- live._

And something... clicks. He's sliding out of bed. He's watching it happen from somewhere far away. There's someone else in the drivers' seat, and someone else stumbling into the kitchen, standing in front of his little fridge unit and eating, messily, out of a box of leftover takeaway. A wave of panic tries to hit and somehow just misses. John tries not to think about it. He goes into the bathroom and takes a shower, shaking his head under the spray, staying there till he's warm. He tries not to think too much and it gets easier and easier to slip further away. That's the secret: just don't think. Just _stop_.

The next day when John wakes up, he thinks to himself, _Hungry, boy?_

Yes. He's hungry.

Food, then.

  


* * *

John goes away. Switches off. What's left puts on clothes, not bothering to look at himself in the mirror, which is always bloody depressing anyway: the bags under his eyes, the strain in his arm and leg. What does a dog care? It's terrifyingly freeing. He goes out, blinking into the pale white light of a winter afternoon. He wanders and he finds a place that smells fantastic, and someone brings him food. He doesn't make conversation with the waitress; he doesn't even make eye contact. Voices talk around him and near him and he ignores them, utterly, because what does a dog care? He doesn't bother to feel self-conscious about the cane, or the tremor in his hand-- what does a dog care? Somewhere in the back of his mind there's a tiny part of John Watson just marveling at how simple it all is, how suddenly easy: _I'm sorry, Doctor Watson is not in at the moment, will you please call again later?_

After lunch John goes for a walk without planning to. He just... starts walking, through parks and past shops and down crowded, bustling streets that he wouldn't have been able to handle, even yesterday. But today he's insulated. Nothing touches him. He walks until he's tired, and then he goes home and strips off his clothes and curls up on his bed, tucking an arm under his head. He actually lets himself come out of it a little, long enough for a few minutes of quiet, disbelieving laughter, just before sleep pulls him down and under.

No, it probably isn't healthy. John realizes that. It's probably not one of the thoughtful, productive coping mechanisms that John's therapist keeps suggesting that he try out. But, God, he's needed it so badly. To get out, to see the sun sparkling on the wet grass, to hear pleasant, undemanding human voices around him. To just be.

He doesn't do it all the time. But when he needs it, when John needs to stop being himself for a bit-- it's there. That simplicity, that quiet. And if he just... tunes out, now and then, he can get through days on end more easily than ever. No talking, no worrying about Harry or his future or his leg or all the people he's left behind. No thinking, period. And he feels better, afterward. He feels rested. He definitely eats better, when it's... when he lets the dog out. Maybe the dog is the part of him that wants to survive, despite everything. If John thinks about it like that, it's not so unhealthy after all.

  


* * *

A few weeks later John is walking in the park, deep under, going nowhere. He almost doesn't respond when Mike Stamford calls out to him. First it's just noise, then recognizably a voice, and then it penetrates: someone is calling _him_ , calling his name. "John Watson!"

John snaps back into himself almost painfully, and maybe he's a little snappish as they talk. Maybe he isn't as pleasant to Mike as he could be. But it's just so hard to be awake, to be aware, when all he wants to do is zone out and let go. When he can't help wondering what Mike would think of him, if he knew what it takes to get John through the simplest day without falling apart.

"I'm not the John Watson you knew," he tells Mike, and it's the truest thing he's said in ages.

  


* * *

John's first week as Sherlock Holmes' flatmate is spent fluctuating between two distinct mental states. The first one is a wordless, joyous sort of amazement that anyone as brilliant and entertaining and wonderfully mad as Sherlock could actually really _exist_ and not just be a fictional character from Gallifrey, and the second one is sheer wordless, incredulous fury that someone as persistently horrible as Sherlock hasn't already been burned as a witch, or left to die on an ice floe, or beaten to death by a nun. _No jury in the world would find me guilty_ is what John usually finds himself thinking, when he gets his words back. All he would have to do is introduce as evidence a single picture of the inside of the fridge. Or a recording of the endless cat-torture that Sherlock calls 'playing the violin'. Or a description of what he did to John's walking shoes, for _science._

It's not all eyeballs and boiled trainers, though. There are times when Sherlock is an oddly considerate flatmate, and they mostly have to do with John's... issues. For the first few weeks John stays braced for Sherlock to pin him down and dissect every bit of it: the bad dreams, the pacing late at night, the fact that sometimes John can't get the fucking shopping done without being overwhelmed and coming home in the middle of it for a breather.

Even if he's not currently practicing, John is a doctor. He knows that there's no such thing as a miracle cure. Falling in with Sherlock Holmes has helped so much-- it helps with the boredom and the limp and the crushing feeling that he'll never do anything that will _matter_ , ever again. But it's not a magic bullet. It doesn't fix everything. There are still days when John's mind just won't _shut up_ , nights when he lies awake till dawn, moments when he just... drifts. And there are still times when he has to call up the memory of that dream in order to get himself washed, dressed, fed, and halfway functional. And Sherlock must have noticed. He must have theories. But he just... doesn't say anything. It's odd, and John keeps wondering when he's going to bring it up.

Then it happens, the bit Sherlock warned John about, obliquely, when they first met: the first time that he really crashes after the end of a trying case. It's been nineteen days straight, chasing flat-out at full speed after a gang of counterfeiters, and suddenly _wham_. The come-down. Sherlock goes from talking a mile a minute, pacing up and down at all hours, whirling about like a sand-devil, to an almost comatose state, flat on his back on the sofa, eyes open but glassy, seeing nothing. His breathing is slow and shallow, sometimes almost strained, as if he has a heavy weight pressing down on his chest.

John makes sure there's food in the fridge, and he builds up the fire in the fireplace before he goes to bed. And eventually Sherlock starts to come out of it, not all at once but bit by bit. One morning John comes down and finds him huddled at the breakfast-table, bundled in his coat and staring at a cup of tea. Later that day he actually moves to his armchair and stares at the bookcases. Maybe tomorrow, John thinks, he'll start talking again. Maybe in a few days he'll be back to normal. Which is to say, distilling phthalic anhydride in the sink, so-called violin music at all hours, and endless breakfast-table rants about people being wrong on his website forums.

He hopes it's soon. On the other hand maybe a few more days off is what John really needs. The counterfeiting case was a strain on him too, and Sherlock's depressive episode worried him, and now it's all catching up. He can feel himself slipping. There's the faintest tremor in his hand when he tries to shave or tie his shoes, and it just all seems so damn pointless anyway. Why put on shoes anyway? Why go out? He pushed himself too hard, John thinks. Stayed alert, stayed up on the surface too long, where everything is bright and loud and demanding, and now... Now he's just so tired.

Time to let the dog out, John thinks. He takes a breath, lets it out, and in the space between, he lets his control slip, and he's gone.

  


* * *

Days go by. Two, maybe three. At some point the sun is high in the sky outside the windows of 221b, and John is still in the sweats and t-shirt that he slept in last night. There's a fire in the fireplace, which means Sherlock's been in recently, but he's not here now, and something in John eases. It's better to let the dog out when Sherlock's not around. He hasn't poked at it so far, but that doesn't mean he won't ever start.

The dog is hungry. John scavenges around in the kitchen and makes a meal out of an apple and a piece of toast with jam, finishing up with a tiny slice off the edge of a huge slab of incredibly rich chocolate cake that (somehow) found its way into the huge bag of take-home leftovers, the last time Sherlock and John stopped in for dinner at Angelo's. They hadn't even ordered dessert.

His stomach placated for now, John's settled on the floor in the sitting room, leaning back against his armchair, head against the armrest. His eyes are closed. He's not thinking of anything. He can smell woodsmoke from the fireplace, the musty scent of stacks of old paper, the chemical tang from the beakers and flasks on the kitchen table. Closer, there's the faintly sweet scent of mold; Sherlock's left a cup of over-sweet tea buried under a stack of papers again. There are footsteps on the stairs now, and some part of John thinks that perhaps he ought to get up and go back upstairs. But the dog says no, it's warm. Stay here. Why shouldn't he be right here, sitting on the floor in front of the fire, warm and fed and safe?

A deep voice rumbles something from the doorway. A low greeting, then on to something else, a slightly higher rambling, volume and tone rising and falling, but in a very controlled way. Theatrical. Like music, almost. Such a familiar sound, reassuring like the constantly moving traffic on Baker Street outside the window. It's Sherlock, the way his voice sounds when he's in a good mood, an up mood, but lacking that slightly manic edge that sometimes worries John. He doesn't bother to surface far enough to understand the words. It hardly matters. Sherlock just likes to talk aloud.

Sherlock throws himself into his chair with a whump. John hears the faint creak as Sherlock cracks open one of his old, heavy books, and starts thumbing through the pages. He reads for a while, still idly muttering the odd phrase now and then. At some point he leans over and pushes a few more loose sticks of kindling onto the fire. John's left side was already a bit too warm, and now he's uncomfortably hot. He doesn't want to move away, so he just shifts round sleepily to turn his other side to the fire, leaning back against Sherlock's chair instead of his own. His arm brushes against Sherlock's leg. Sherlock doesn't react, just keeps turning pages in his book. John lets the warmth sink into the right side of his body and relaxes, listening to Sherlock breathe and murmur.

When he comes out of it, it's dark in the sitting room, and his leg has almost gone numb. At some point Sherlock must have gotten up to turn on a lamp, but John doesn't remember that. Also sometime in the past few hours, he shifted closer, unconsciously, so that he's leaning heavily against Sherlock's legs; he's leaning more on Sherlock, on the whole, than he is resting against the chair. Sherlock smells like his expensive dry cleaners, and a bit like wool, and very faintly of his hypoallergenic fragrance-free shampoo and soap. And Sherlock's arm is resting on the arm-rest of his chair, which means that his hand is casually brushing against the side of John's head.

The back of his hand is warm against John's ear, and the backs of his fingers are warm alongside John's neck. His hand is shifting slowly, but rhythmically, the thin skin over his knuckles dragging gentle stripes of sensation against the buzzed-short hair at the back of John's neck.

"Sherlock," John says, the first words he's said in days, "d'you know you're sort of... petting me?"

Sherlock jerks his hand away, fast. "I wasn't," he says defensively. "You were-- in the way of my hand."

John exhales with a whoosh of relief, because that's a normal, blokey sort of thing to say, isn't it? Not that he was expecting Sherlock to go with 'So what, you're extremely pettable' or anything like that, but on the other hand, he wouldn't quite put it past him, either. There's not much John would put past Sherlock.

"Okay," John says, and grabs the arm of Sherlock's chair and levers himself to his feet. Nothing like a little adrenaline rush of _what the hell was that_ to wake a man back up to being himself, that's for sure. He takes a step towards the kitchen, meaning to get himself a glass of water. "Sorry for being in the way of your hand, then."

"Where do you _go_?" Sherlock asks absently as he turns a page, and John freezes. He doesn't look back. "You go somewhere; it's certainly not here. What's it like," he says, tone a bit acid now, "John Watson's happy place?"

John takes a few slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Sherlock's still behind him but John can practically feel his gaze, can list off everything Sherlock's observing: panic-attack breathing, hunched shoulders, hands twitching as they resist the urge to curl into fists--

"No, never mind. No. Sorry," Sherlock says, and John opens his mouth, then closes it again, because _what_ was that? So much for thinking that there was nothing Sherlock could say that would be shocking. "Idiotic question," Sherlock mutters, opening his book again, pointedly. "God knows, I'd rather have my tongue pulled out than talk when I'm... not myself. It's not the same for you, I do see that, you weren't _meant_ to-- You weren't always this way. I imagine you weren't. I can't _know_ ," he says, as if his tragic inability to read John's mind is something John is doing on purpose to irritate him.

John turns around again, slowly, to face Sherlock. Sherlock is hunched over his book like a raven, avoiding John's eyes.

"If I asked you what yours was, would you tell me?" John says. "Your 'happy place.'" He makes air quotes around the therapy-speak, and Sherlock smiles at his book.

"If you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey its innumerable little lanes and courts," Sherlock pronounces theatrically, still not looking up. Must be time for another round of 'oh, you didn't go to Oxford?', then. Twat. John waits, forcing a tolerant smile, and Sherlock finally lifts his head to meet John's eyes, irritated but amused. "Really, John, where did you think I acquired my encyclopedic knowledge of the city? Google Street View? I go _out_."

And just for a second, John gets it, he really gets it. All those maps and schedules and shortcuts and back ways that Sherlock has at his fingertips, wherever and whenever they are, that's how he knows them: he's built a four-dimensional, constantly updating, London-sized model of London in his head, and John would bet that when he's working on it, even Sherlock can't hold on to any other thoughts.

He realizes, suddenly, that he's smiling, _really_ smiling. It's unexpected, and he stands there for a moment, looking surprised and happy at once, and probably, consequently, like an idiot. He'd almost forgotten that he has smiles that aren't forced, irritated, sympathetic or otherwise professional.

"Dim sum?" he suggests. Sherlock looks up, shocked, then wipes the surprise off his face and looks faintly suspicious instead. John can't help but let his smile widen into a grin. "Come on. I'm starving."

Sherlock doesn't move. "But... I'm just in the middle of a chapter."

"Bring it, read at the table." John shrugs.

Sherlock blinks several times, quickly. "Really?"

"Really."

Sherlock glances around as if he's looking for more excuses, but he doesn't find any. "Well... all right then."

  


* * *

The three and a half hours that John spends in the company of Jim Moriarty go by like years. He doesn't say a word after the first "What the hell--" and "You!" The way Moriarty smiles, _so_ pleased with himself, is enough to shut John up right quick. When they put a thick black hood over his head and cinch it closed around his neck, he's almost grateful, because it means at least his face won't be giving anything away. Moriarty doesn't need any more ammunition.

Since John is not an idiot, he knows exactly where this is going. He can see all the different ways that this night could end, ranging from _really badly_ to _really fucking badly_. So he's basically furious and terrified for every single minute of those three and a half hours, and because he can't do anything about it, it wears him down really quickly. He can't fight, can't argue, but he can't slip away, either. Can't sink down and disappear. He just has to stay in the moment, and take in every scrap of information that he can. If he can just stay calm and wait for his chance, that fraction of a second when Jim Moriarty will be the one who's fucking _distracted_ \--

It's difficult. It's like med school and boot camp and Afghanistan all crammed into a few hours, sleep deprivation and terror and rage battling it out for ownership of every passing second. It feels like slogging through shifting, sliding sand with a twenty-pound pack on his back. It feels like being shot and struggling to stay conscious, because (Please God let me live) every moment could be his last, and he can't let go. Not yet.

Not just yet.

John's moment is coming. He waits.

  


* * *

After the explosion, it feels like a thousand more years go by before the doctors finally pronounce John and Sherlock fit to be released. John's dead tired but he knows his own body, knows that the adrenaline in his system won't let him sleep for hours yet. He still can't quite believe they both made it out alive, let alone walking and mostly functional. He can't stop running over it in his head, even as they're being driven home, in one of Mycroft's black cars. He can't believe that it's the same night, that it's not even morning. Even the streetlights are still on.

Maybe this night will go on forever. Maybe dawn just won't ever come. After this day John wouldn't be surprised. He feels like he's lost that capacity completely.

He looks over at Sherlock. Sherlock is looking at him. He looks faintly puzzled. Has done since the pool. John lets it go for now. They're not going to have any kind of meaningful conversation in front of Mycroft's driver. He lets his eyes range over Sherlock's injuries instead. Sherlock has a cracked rib, not actually too bad. Two broken fingers on his left hand, splinted and bandaged. Left wrist also a bit bunged up. He's got that arm tucked protectively up around his ribs, but John can't really tell which he's favoring more. That's all, except for eleven stitches in the sole of his right foot, which apparently didn't even happen in the explosion, but afterward, while Sherlock was dragging John out of the burning building with one shoe on.

John got off even easier, he's just banged up and bruised all up and down his back, knees and elbows and knuckles scraped bloody, and a mild burn on the back of his left arm. (And what may or may not be, but John argues is _not_ , a mild concussion. Even though, yes, he was dizzy (and is still dizzy) and yes, he vomited, but who wouldn't sick up after swallowing a pint of dusty, bloody pool water, and yes, his ears are ringing but that might have something to do with the _explosion_ , maybe. And yes, his speech was a bit slurred when the first emergency responders showed up to the scene, but he was wet and fucking _cold_ , and what it comes down to is, John is a damn doctor and he'd know if he had a concussion and he doesn't. So, no, he doesn't have to stay under medical supervision for twenty-four hours, he can just go home. So there.

John swallows and flexes his hands, welcoming the manageable sting of pain in his knuckles as they turn onto Baker Street and the towncar begins to glide to a stop. It's going to be difficult to stay present once they get inside. He doesn't think he's ever wanted _anything_ as much as he wants, right now, to switch off and let the dog out, but he can't. If nothing else he's got to make sure Sherlock _rests_ \-- the man could aggravate his injuries in a bad way if he goes into his usual routine, pacing and gesturing dramatically and throwing himself about. He needs to sleep, actually _sleep_ in a _bed_ , but realistically John will probably have to settle for Sherlock lying down quietly on the sofa. Or just sitting down, really. It doesn't even have to be quiet. Probably won't be. John sighs.

They get out of the car, and now, yes, it's starting to get a bit lighter outside, but it's still not quite dawn. Sherlock hangs back and lets John go up the first few steps by himself. Fumbling with his keys, John glances back, wanting to keep Sherlock in sight. Mycroft brought them clean, dry clothes at the hospital, including (unsettlingly) the exact right size and brand of underwear for John, and (even more unsettlingly, John can't help but think) a spanking new Posh Fucking Coat for Sherlock, completely identical to the old one. So when John looks back, just for a moment Sherlock looks all right: bandaged hand hidden in the folds of his coat, bandaged ribs hidden under a perfectly pressed shirt. It could be any other night, a totally normal evening coming home to Baker Street. Maybe he looks a little pale, a little shocky, but frankly Sherlock always looks like that.

"Sherlock," John says, and the illusion shatters as Sherlock flinches hard, jerking his head around to meet John's eyes, almost frantically, as if John had said _Incoming_ or _Look, Godzilla_. (Or _Evening. This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock_... But John isn't going to think about that now. Not just now.)

"Are you coming?" John prods, and Sherlock nods, gesturing impatiently for him to go in already. He does, and Sherlock follows on his heels.

"You first," Sherlock says, and John takes the first step up the stairs, left hand on the wall for balance. Suddenly Sherlock is behind him, lifting John's right arm over Sherlock's shoulders, letting John lean on him. As long as Sherlock stays a step or two behind, the height difference is negligible, but it's still a bit awkward, and John can't help thinking that effectively, all this really means is that if Sherlock falls, John falls too, and vice versa.

But he supposes he knew that already.

  


* * *

The living room is dark, windows still boarded up. John actually doesn't mind that just now. It feels safer. As they'd ascended the stairs, John had let himself lean against Sherlock-- he _was_ still shaky, even if he wasn't concussed-- but now, as they emerge into the living room, Sherlock leans more heavily on John, taking the weight off his injured foot. John bears up under it. He tries to steer Sherlock over to the sofa, but Sherlock grunts and leans harder and John ends up lowering him gently into his chair in front of the fire. He's sitting, at least. John will settle for that.

He goes into the kitchen and grabs an ice-pack from the freezer, wrapping it in a tea-towel and giving it to Sherlock. Sherlock takes it in his good hand and presses it against the lower edge of his ribcage with a hiss.

"Hungry?" John asks, not really hopefully.

"No," Sherlock says. He glances over at the sofa. "Get me that blanket, will you?"

John goes and gets the blanket, dragging it across the floor and tossing it into Sherlock's lap. Sherlock ignores it, letting it fall over his knees.

"And a book, if you don't mind." He points. "Bottom shelf, eleventh from the left, _Teleological Response of the Virus_."

"Sherlock, you need _rest_ ," John begins, although he doesn't even really know why he's protesting. Sherlock is immobile, under a blanket and thinking about something besides James Moriarty-- it's all really better than John could have hoped for.

"Please, John, the book," Sherlock insists. John shakes his head and moves to pull it off the shelf. Even now he's imagining that he's going to go upstairs and actually sleep. Then he stops and weighs the book that he's holding in his hands, shifting it from palm to palm. It's oddly heavy for a medium-sized book, and it feels as if the top is heavier than the bottom, almost as if--

Sherlock stretches over and plucks it out of his hands, setting it down on the arm of his chair and opening it with one hand. John stares down at the contents. Of course it's not a real book, it's been hollowed out, with foam curves forming a shape so that its hidden contents won't rattle around; a small, odd-looking snub-nosed revolver, and a round moon clip of bullets. John watches as Sherlock clumsily thumbs open the cylinder and loads the clip, showing no consideration for his broken fingers or bandaged wrist.

"What is that?" John asks.

"This is a five-shot double-action revolver with an integral laser sight," Sherlock says, and aims the gun past John. A green laser shoots out from just under the barrel, out the open door and into the darkness over the stairs, and Sherlock flicks it off again. "I was very nearly killed with this gun once, in St. Petersburg of all places. Not Russia," he says, and grins, an oddly healthy-looking grin. "Florida. Now. I will keep first watch, and I will wake you in eight hours."

"Two," John says immediately.

"Six," Sherlock counters.

"Four." John knows Lestrade will have men watching the house, and Mycroft probably has the whole street on some sort of lockdown... but he also knows that this is probably the only way either one of them is going to be able to relax enough to get any _real_ rest.

"Agreed," Sherlock says. His eyes are solemn, but a smile is threatening. Just the barest twist of his lips gives it away.

John stares hard at Sherlock, just so he knows that _John_ knows that he's just been really obviously manipulated, and then he blinks and says, "Wait. If you have a gun, why did you take mine?"

"It seemed..." Sherlock blinks. "Fitting. As I said, this gun was used in an attempt on my life, but yours, well, yours was used to save my life. More than once. So."

"For luck," John translates. A sort of talisman. It's almost touching. His head aches and there's still a metallic hum buzzing in his ears, but his mouth stretches into an odd and disbelieving smile despite himself.

"Oh, shut up and get down here." Sherlock clumsily switches the revolver to his mostly-useless left hand, lowers his right hand to knee height and snaps his fingers.

"Sorry, what?" John says. The ringing in his ears gets a bit louder.

Sherlock's not looking at him, fumbling with his left hand to keep the gun on his lap and the ice-pack against his ribs, and pushing the blanket off his knees with the other. When it's at his feet, he kicks it into a rough sort of padded area at the foot of his chair. John watches Sherlock's feet, already starting to feel a bit out of his head. Mycroft brought Sherlock some replacement shoes, too, but he couldn't wear them over his bandaged foot. So instead, as they were being discharged, somebody gave Sherlock these amazing white trainers, and clean white socks to go with. Sherlock in athletic shoes. It's a bit mad. "Four hours," he says, matter-of-factly, looking up at John. "You-- do whatever it is. Your thing. I'll keep watch."

John takes a breath, then another. His mouth feels dry, and he can taste blood and chlorine.

Sherlock looks up, eyes piercing. "Problem?"

"You snapped your fingers at me," John says, still disbelieving.

"Yes, to make you angry. I thought you might need to be-- sometimes you function better when you're angry," Sherlock rattles out, then shuts his mouth with a click and shakes his head, confused. Whatever they gave him for the pain must have been the good stuff, or else the sleep deprivation is catching up with him. Or both. "Again: problem?" he repeats, but it's a pale echo of his usual attitude.

John grimaces. His amusement and his anger both melt away, leaving a sort of sick hollow feeling. He doesn't actually know if he can say it without vomiting again, but he sucks in a breath of air between his teeth and finally manages: "People do get _so_ attached to their pets."

Sherlock doesn't move, doesn't blink, but his eyes get brighter and then his mouth falls open and now he's getting that half dazed I-knew-it look, God _damn_ him. "Oh," he says, " _oh_ , is _that_ what it is--!" and John doesn't have the energy or the stability for this conversation, not tonight. This morning. Who the bloody hell cares.

"Shut up. Stop it," John says, wincing. He staggers back a a bit and jumps when he backs into his chair, shuddering as the adrenaline tries to surge again. He just doesn't have anything _left_ for this, not-- "Sherlock, really, just _don't_ \--"

"What? Don't what?" Sherlock says, baffled and callous.

"Don't," John says, and why shouldn't Sherlock be baffled? _John_ doesn't even know what he means. "Just don't!"

"Don't observe the evidence when it's directly before me? Really?" Sherlock says through gritted teeth, then gets louder and more sarcastic. "John, you're talking to a man whose primary coping mechanisms are Class A controlled drugs, ludicrously elaborate murder-suicide fantasies, and recreational sadism; do you really think I'm going to judge you because you occasionally need to _sit on the floor?_ "

Well. John pauses, mouth open. He closes it again and shrugs a little. Put like that, it doesn't _actually_ sound so terrible. He clears his throat a little. "These, uh, murder-suicide fantasies--"

"No, you are not an involved party," Sherlock says, tipping his head back wearily.

"No, I didn't-- I wasn't thinking that," John says. He really wasn't.

"It's a problem of focus," Sherlock says, "we can discuss it later. Right now, will you please _sit down,_ it's making me dizzy just to look at you."

John steps forward, and looks down at Sherlock. Sherlock's eyes are bloodshot, with shocking dark hollows underneath, making them look even more unnaturally bright than they usually do. His hair looks ridiculous, still a touch damp when they left the hospital, now mostly dried into chaotic, twisting curls.

"Four hours," John says, and Sherlock nods. All right then. Bracing himself on Sherlock's chair, John goes through the slightly laborious process of lowering himself down to lean against Sherlock's legs. Having the blanket folded under him for padding does help. He leans his head against Sherlock's knee unashamedly. "When you wake me," he murmurs, "say my name. That gets through."

"See you in four hours, then," Sherlock says, in agreement, and John closes his eyes and lets the words go, lets the tension and the fear go. Lets himself slide back down into that safe place. Sherlock smells like the hospital, like chlorine and smoke and dust, but underneath that like wool and bitter sweat. Familiar, homey smells. Sherlock murmurs something else, gentle and lost, and his good hand strokes once over the side of John's head and his shoulder.

He doesn't know how long he stays awake, like that, but eventually he does sleep.

  


* * *

When John wakes up, faint grey light is sliding in through the gaps at the edges of the boarded-up windows. Sherlock is leaning over him, saying his name in a hoarse croak. "John. John."

"What. God. All right." John's head is pounding, and every joint and muscle in his body aches. His mouth tastes like death. "What time is it?" he slurs.

"Nearly two in the afternoon."

John opens his eyes wide and blinks hard, trying to force himself more awake, then screws them shut again. "What happened to four hours?"

"I made a unilateral decision. You needed the rest." Sherlock is clearly trying to sound commanding, even regal, but there's a faint strain of vulnerability in his voice too. It amazes John that someone who's so unreadable most of the time can be clear as glass in a moment like this.

"So you fell asleep, then."

The silence is telling. John huffs out half a laugh and twists around, his body protesting every move, and gives Sherlock a considering look. Sherlock frowns at him. "If I can manage to stand up," John says, "do you think you could get us into your room?"

"My room?" Sherlock purses his lips, as if John had suggested setting up camp outside in the alley.

"Unless you'd like to drag me bodily up another a flight of stairs, yeah. Your room."

"Hm." Sherlock shifts, testing his injured foot against the ground, then stands shakily. Once upright, he grins at John, victorious, and reaches down with his good hand to pull John up.

  


* * *

Sherlock hides his gun away, and John hobbles into the kitchen for a fresh ice-pack and a glass of water and some of the assorted painkillers they came home from hospital with. He makes a stop in the bathroom, is pleased to note the lack of blood in his urine, and meets up Sherlock in his room a few minutes later.

John hasn't really been in Sherlock's room before, unless sticking his head in once or twice to make sure Sherlock was still alive after a few days of silence counts. And then there was that one time when smoke started seeping under the door, but Sherlock claimed everything was under control and barely let him over the threshold. There's not really that much to see; the parts of the room that aren't bookcases are buried in books and random files and loose stacks of paper. During John's absence, Sherlock has managed to struggle out of his new trousers and into a pair of pajama bottoms, but his bad arm and head are stuck in an oversized Oxford Boxing Club sweatshirt and John has to set the pills and water aside, grab the sleeve and the neck-hole and force it down the rest of the way over Sherlock's head. He only smirks a little while he's doing it.

Sherlock glares at him, a picture of offended dignity. "Oh," he says, "and before I forget, in the interests of accuracy, John-- he didn't say _attached_ , he said _sentimental_. 'People get so _sentimental_ about their pets.'"

John goes still, his hand steady against Sherlock's shoulder.

"I'm not disagreeing with your amendment, mind you. I really don't think I could be said to be sentimental about you. Attached, however..." He trails off, and his jaw works. "I can't _honestly_ say that I haven't formed a... sort of an attachment. To you. Perhaps unluckily for you. That remains to be seen."

John opens his mouth, but he isn't sure Sherlock actually wants him to say anything to that. What Sherlock just said has the air of a confession, required to be spoken aloud, and heard. Witnessed. And maybe that's all.

"Here," he says, turning and grabbing the water glass back up before it can slide off the top of the precariously stacked papers on Sherlock's desk. He hands Sherlock two pills and offers him the water glass, but Sherlock dry-swallows the pills and ignores the water. John sighs, washes his own pills down, then looks around for a flat, secure place to put the mostly-empty glass. There really isn't one. He bends, grunting slightly, and puts it down on the floor, pushing it up against the base of a stack of papers with his foot.

That done, he eyes Sherlock's bed doubtfully. John had been considering stretching out next to him, maybe feet to head, if he could manage it without driving Sherlock absolutely spare. But of course Sherlock's bed is even more narrow and utilitarian than John had remembered, just a cheap mattress on a wobbly Ikea frame, shoved up against the wall like the least important thing in the room. (The wheeled ergonomic office chair at Sherlock's desk looks more comfortable, unsurprisingly.) Well, John is good at working with limited resources. He gets Sherlock arranged on the bed, flat on his back with the ice-pack tucked between his wrist and his ribs, then tests out the chair. It's actually unbelievably uncomfortable, which probably explains why Sherlock does most of his work from the sofa. John sighs.

"Oh, get over here," Sherlock croaks, and pulls his legs up a bit, knees bent. "There's room, if you sort of curl up."

John eyes the space, figures it'll work if his back is right up against the wall and he lets his feet hang off the bed a bit. He levers himself to his feet again. Then he remembers Sarah saying _I'll let you kip at the end of my bed_ and starts giggling breathlessly, leaning back against Sherlock's desk to keep his balance.

"What?" Sherlock mutters, eyes half-lidded.

"You were absolutely the last to know," John says, holding his own ribs. "Everybody could tell. Just not you."

Sherlock doesn't say anything, just stares, bemused.

"Kip at the end of your bed, _really_ ," John says, and crawls onto the foot of Sherlock's bed. "You never had a dog, did you."

"Oh," Sherlock says. "Oh... no." He shoves a pillow down at John, and John settles in, his head propped up near Sherlock's thighs. His position is dubious. As soon as Sherlock falls asleep, he's going to unconsciously stretch his legs out and kick John right in the stomach. He reaches out and presses down on Sherlock's knees, making him straighten his legs out until the soles of his feet are a bare half-inch from John's belly. Sherlock has still got his hospital-provided white ankle socks on, and John brushes his fingers against the bottom of Sherlock's right foot, reassured to feel the crisp bulk of bandages under the thin material.

He pats Sherlock's bare ankle, then frowns, wrapping a hand around it. "Christ, why didn't you tell me your feet were this cold?"

"My feet are always cold," Sherlock says grimly. "Nothing to be done."

John sighs and pulls Sherlock's feet closer, pressing them right up against his scratchy new jumper. Then he considers, lifts the hem of the jumper and tucks Sherlock's feet up underneath, against his cotton t-shirt. He pulls the the jumper over Sherlock's feet as best he can, then puts his arm over them to keep the top sides warm as well.

"Oh," Sherlock says. His toes scrunch greedily against John. "Oh, I've heard of this."

"Heard of what?"

"When you sleep with someone, you get to put your feet right up against them. Or not. The etiquette is, apparently, disputed. Still. It sounded nice," Sherlock says distantly. "It _is_ nice." His toes wiggle again, and then a larger twitch goes through him, and he's suddenly frozen, like a statue. "Ah, John," Sherlock says, very quietly, "Not that I mean... that is, I should perhaps ask... Your _thing,_ the thing that you... It isn't, um... Well, it's not..."

There's only one topic that reduces Sherlock to sentence fragments. John turns his face into his pillow and starts giggling again.

"What? No, why are you laughing? It's a reasonable assumption!" Sherlock protests, trying to prop himself up on one elbow to get a better look at John. He winces and flops back down.

"Sherlock, I promise," John says, gasping, "it's not a sex thing, it's really not." He is trying to sound serious. He can't stop snickering. Oh, god, now he's actually picturing it, collars and leashes and things. "God, of course not. That would practically be _normal_."

"Compared to?"

"Compared to _my life!_ " John says, choking out the last couple of giggles.

"Ah." Slowly, Sherlock's feet relax, and then the rest of him too. John pats his feet reassuringly. After a long moment, Sherlock says, "It's overrated anyway."

John blinks. He's almost too tired to follow. "I hope you mean normality."

"I mean sex," Sherlock says, very firmly. "But yes, normality as well." He yawns, mashing his face into his own pillow to muffle it. "Really... all things considered," he goes on, "It wouldn't be unacceptable if it _were_ a sex thing, on your part. I mean, as long as this," he flaps a hand sleepily towards the foot of the bed, "was the extent of my expected participation, I... no, I suppose I really wouldn't mind if you got off on it. Why not?"

"You nutter. Christ, you madman," John says wonderingly. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." He thinks about it for a second. "Actually, that may be the nicest thing _anyone's_ ever said to me."

"Oh! I'm superlative, lovely!" Sherlock says with woozy cheer from the other end of the bed. Yeah, the pills are definitely kicking in now.

"You are something," John says, and rubs a hand over Sherlock's bony ankle. "Now go to sleep."

  


* * *

In John's dream it was a bitterly cold night somewhere, the roads wet with rain, glistening tracks of reflected light gleaming out from under every streetlight and neon sign. But John wasn't cold, because he was running, the blood pumping in his veins and faint patches of sweat breaking out on his chest and under his arms. It felt good to run, to be on the chase, to feel the icy air knife in as he stretched his legs and strained his lungs. Excitement pushed him onward, and for a while the chase was everything, all-consuming. But he also knew that after the chase he could go in to where it was warm and safe, that he could rest there-- and even better, now there was someone at his shoulder, running with him, first at his side and then pulling ahead.

He pushed himself harder, trying to keep up, enjoying the burn and the stretch of it, the pure wordless joy of pushing to his limits and beyond, racing after that dark shape with the bright eyes, mouth open and huffing out great clouds of white breath. The sound of breathless laughter came and went, snatched away by the wind. There would never be anything more important, more exciting, more satisfying.

And in his dream the world was a brilliant place, exciting and mysterious, danger around every corner, but nothing they couldn't handle, nothing they couldn't face. And the best part was that it seemed to go on for ages and ages, and when John finally woke up, well, that was all right, too. Because it wasn't really over.


End file.
